Sunday 29 April 2018

Religion: The Last Day on Earth

As those of us who have looked these things up know, religions are forever nicking bits from other religions to sex their own up and as Christianity was a Johnny come lately in religion terms, it pretty much went around and took the best bits for their own religion and changed the names. 
One of the things it took and put their own spin on was the belief regarding the end of the world and the triumph of good over evil aka Judgement Day.
What the Christians tell their followers is to keep an eye out for four men on horses charging across the world, spreading War, Famine, Pestilence and Death and then amidst tornadoes and earthquakes, pretty much every comet in the universe will hit the planet while Satan walks the Earth as Jesus puts in a second appearance and hoovers up into heaven anyone 'good'.
As the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism is the oldest known religion, it was also the first to come up with the idea of Judgement Day that all the others borrowed. They say that a comet named Gochihr will strike the Earth releasing waves of holy lava ripples across the entire surface of the world with those who have been good wading through it blissfully but all the bad people melting in agony.
The Hopi tribe of Native-Americans believe that there are a number of Worlds with each getting destroyed by a comet when humanity gets too corrupt, with only the Hopi getting preserved and moved to the next planet to try again.
Aztec mythology has us all coming to a grisly end at the bony hands of the Tzitzimime, who are skeletons who will arrive during a total solar eclipse lasting forever caused by angry Aztec Gods who have given up on mankind because it is they who keep the Sun glowing and is only the Sun saving us from the Tzitzimime.
Norse Mythology is particularly imaginative with Norse bad boy Loki escaping from ropes made of his son's intestines and hijacking a ship made of dead men's toenails before awakening the World Serpent who rises from the oceans and spews poison across the lands and skies until Earth sinks into the ocean leaving just two humans to repopulate what's left of the Earth.
The Hindu's also have a horse-led judgement day but where Christians have four they only have one, Lord Kalki, who armed with a sword, slashes and hacks at wrongdoers before the world ends.
Islam sees an increase of natural disasters, an orgy of violence, bloodshed, anarchy, and sexual immorality before a day of reckoning, in which the dead are reunited with their bodies and handed a book containing one’s accumulated deeds. Those who led good lives will be admitted to heaven, while those who were sinful are sent to the fires of hell.
Finally, Buddhism doesn't have men on horses or comets but people just forgetting the Buddha's teachings and generally being awful to each other. Then Maitreya, comes along to re-teach humanity about the 10 non-virtuous deeds and the 10 virtuous deeds before six more suns show up and boil off all the rivers, lakes and oceans before the Earth explodes into a massive fireball. 

Whichever one of the religions deities turn up to end things, none are particularly nice so maybe what we need is another religion, one where it doesn't all end in killer skeletons or Gods arriving in ships made of toenails to kill us all.

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